This is a tutorial for making CYO on gimp, and it's specifically for those of you who have just downloaded gimp and maybe don't know what to do, so we'll start witht he basics

Setting up your workspace

When you first open gimp, you should see the main gimp screen and two dockable windows (see the picture below). The first is your toolbox, and the second combines your layers, channels, paths and history at the top, and your patterns and gradients at the bottom. If you don’t see one of these or have closed it out, you can find them under the windows tab ( layers, channels, paths will be in windows > recently closed docks). You can move these windows anywhere you’re comfortable with.

A Brief overview of general gimp functions

The best way to learn the tools and functions of gimp is to play around with them, but when you open graphics program for the first time, it can seem a bit overwhelming, so here are some of the basics

** Your toolbox**

If you mouse over the tools in your toolbox, you will see a general description of what each tool does. When you click on a tool at the top of your toolbox, the options for that tool are shown at the bottom. In the image below, the paintbrush tool is selected, and underneath you can see the options to select a paintbrush, how sheer or opaque you want the color to be, how big you want the brush to be, etc.

** your layers window**

**colors tab**

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* before you start making CYO you will need a doll base to work with. If you don’t already have one you can right click on the image below and save it to either your default picture folder ( “My pictures“) or to a folder you have created.

To open your doll base, go to the File tab > open and you will see a list of all your pictures and folders. Select your doll base from this list or from the folder you saved it in and click open at the bottom of this window. ( the same steps as opening an image below)

** downloading clothes from the Divachix mall to your computer**

To download a clothing item from the Divachix mall, find that item in the mall and click the download button underneath the color you wish to use….

Right click on the image, select “save as.” and save the file to your picture folder.

To open the image in gimp, select “open” under your file tab and open the file of the clothing item you saved. When the picture opens, right click on the image and go to edit > copy. On your doll base, add a new transparent layer. With your new layer selected in your layers window, right click anywhere on image and go to edit > paste. From the layer tab at the top of your screen select “anchor layer”

Coloring an image

To change the color of an item in gimp, you can use either the hue/ saturation option or the colorize option at the top. Reference the above post to learn the difference between the two! If you lose definition by changing the color of an item you can play around with the brightness/ contrast option to regain some of the contrast.

Cutting from an image

To edit clothing by cutting parts of an item off, use the free select tool in your toolbox to draw the seam you wish to cut from and then circle all the parts you wish to cut. Once you have the area you wish to cut surrounded by a moving dashed line, mouse over the area, right click and select edit> cut. To get a finished look, you can select a small border around the edge of the item using the same method as above, and use hue/sat to darken the area slightly.

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To add a pattern to the item of clothing, use your free select tool to outline the item or the parts you wish to add the pattern to. On a separate layer, use the bucket fill tool (with “pattern fill” selected at the bottom of your toolbox) to add the pattern to this area, or use the paintbrush to paint your image on. Busy patterns sometimes fill a little outside the line, or create jagged edges, so you may need to use your free select tool to cut any excess pattern pixels from the outline of your item. Once you have your pattern or brush image finished, duplicate the layer of the original item of clothing by selecting the layer in your layers window and then going to the layers tab at the top of your screen and selecting duplicate layer. Use brightness contrast to add more contrast to this layer ( you may need to play around with the brightness as well, I usually make the item a little lighter that the original.) Use the Opacity slide bar at the top of your layers window to make the layer as sheer as you need to see the pattern while still retaining the detail.

Saving finished and unfinished work
When you start a project in gimp, you should save it as an xcf file as soon as you have any work done. To do this go to File> save as, and select the folder you wish to save the file in ( My pictures unless you have a separate file). In the test box at the top name your file “name of file” . xcf. This type of file will save your project with all of your layers separate. After you’ve named your file you can go to save instead of save as whenever you’ve completed anymore work.

When you are done with your project and it’s ready for your dolly, you must save your file as a png file. Go to File>save as and in the top text box where the name of the file is change the “xcf” part to “png”

Uploading your design to your wardrobe

When you are ready to upload your item to your wardrobe, the first thing to do is make sure it is within the given file size. Gimp often says that a file is a little smaller than DC says it is so I would recommend aiming for at least 1 kb smaller than the limit. To find out what size your file is after it has been saved, you can go to the Image tab at the top of your gimp screen and select “image properties” at the very bottom. This will bring up all of the properties of your image from the most recent save point. If your image is too big to fit you can use the posterize option ( for more detail reference the color functions section above.) or an file reduction program like opting.

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To begin, open the diva base you have saved to your computer by clicking 'File' --> 'Open' and then locating your file.Next, create a new layer by clicking 'Layer' --> 'New Layer' and setting the later properties to the following:
Make sure the layer is set to TRANSPARENT!!

Once you have done this, select the Pencil tool, and set the scale to 0.01, and select the color you would like to draw the clothing item in.
Select the new layer you created in the previous step, and draw the outline of the clothing item you are creating on top of the Diva base. If you need more than one pencil stroke this is okay, as long as you have the same layer selected throughout the process.
(Don't worry about the pixely look of the outline, it can be smoothed out later.)

Next, select the Bucket Fill tool and use it to fill inside the area you have just drawn.
Once you have done this, create a new layer (if you have forgotten how to do this, refer to the beginning steps above).

Select the Pencil tool again, and change the color to a darker hue than the color you previously drew with. On the new layer, draw in the lines that will be used for shading. If needed, change the transparency on the first layer so that you can see the Diva base to accurately draw the lines of shading. (To do this, select the icon on the layers toolbar that is next to the layer you are trying to make invisible)
Your lines will vary, but they may look like this: (I have added a few random lines that will later look like wrinkles.)

After you have done this, select the Smudge tool.
On the same layer as before, smudge the lines you have just drawn a bit to your preference.
I have set the smudge properties and smudged my image to the following:
(As you can see, it isn't smudged perfectly, but you may practice with this until you get the results you were looking for.)

You may want to create another layer, and with a lighter hue draw in the highlights on the object. Repeat the steps above in a lighter hue for this.
(Don't worry about any excess smudging that has exceeded the object, we can clean this up later.)

Once again, create another new layer. This time the layer wil be used for the basic shading of the item.
Using the pencil tool and a darker hue, line the edges of the object that will be curving on the sides of the Diva. Do the same in a lighter hue towards the center stomach area.

Smudge the lines you have just created to help form the body shading. You may want to change the Smudge brush opacity to 60%.
You may want to select the current layer and drag it below the highlight & lowlight shading layers, to make the wrinkles and such more defined. However, this depends completely on personal preference.

At this point, you are nearly finished. You may want to go back and 'Duplicate' some of your layers to make the shading more intense. In order to do this, click on the layer you want to duplicate on the layers toolbar, right click, and press 'Duplicate'.

Finally, you are ready to finish your item! Let's start by cleaning up the outer lines.
For each of the layers you have previously created, right click each layer and press 'Merge Down' in the same way as you duplicated laters. This will move all of your layers to one neat layer. Make sure you DO NOT merge the layers onto the Diva base!!

After you have done this, select the freestyle 'Cut' tool .
Use this tool to cut messy portions around and along the edge of your item and press the 'Delete' button to delete each section you cut. Continue this until your item is clean, neat, and pretty.

Once you have completed this, you are ready to save your work!
To do this, refer to, "Saving finished and unfinished work" (see above).

Scroll down to the freebies section to see the finished product.

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when you click posterize and it makes it all bright, there should be a slide bar thing that you can slide to the right or left. The left side is the lowest number of colors and the right side is what your image already is so you wanna slide it to the right until it looks good and THEN press ok and save it

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